‘Never forgotten’ — Faith Hedgepeth’s tribe is thankful for arrest, still awaits answers

In tiny Hollister, the Haliwa-Saponi tribe has waited nine years for an arrest, still frantic over their native daughter, Faith Hedgepeth, slain in her Chapel Hill apartment — the last place anyone expected violence.

So when news broke Thursday that Chapel Hill police had charged a 28-year-old man from Durham, the tribal members who knew Hedgepeth from birth felt themselves joyfully exhale.

“I was absolutely blown away,” said Sharon Berrun, the tribe’s youth services director, stringing corn to make necklaces for her next culture class. “Ecstatic. All we could do is thank God. It doesn’t bring her back, but maybe her family slept a little better. We have never forgotten.”

But even with Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares in custody, charged with first-degree murder, the 3,000 tribal members along the Halifax-Warren county border feel a nagging anxiety about the case that took so long to solve.

Police and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein have released no clues about the DNA match that led to their arrest, noting their investigation continues and urging patience while friends clamor for answers.

‘We are waiting to hear more’

For the Haliwa-Saponi, the case not only feels far from over, it has yet to throw light on the epidemic number of Indigenous women missing and murdered nationwide.

“We are waiting to hear more,” said Amelia Kay Oxendine, “because I’ve never seen that gentleman before. How much patience do we need? We don’t feel like he was alone.”

A sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill, Hedgepeth grew up knowing practically all members of the tribe around rural Hollister, which has sought but not received federal recognition.

She came from a world with scant opportunities for youth. Outside the tribal office and school, the town consists of little beyond the Dollar General and Family Dollar stores.

Hollister got a boost recently when native singer Brooke Simpson made it to the finals of TV’s “America’s Got Talent.” Simpson’s picture is tacked to the outside of both Cle’s Stop-N-Shop and Five Corners Produce.

A dream took Hedgepeth to Chapel Hill

Hedgepeth dreamed of becoming a pediatrician, and when a scholarship for advanced minority students sent her to Chapel Hill, she worked at a Red Robin restaurant to get gas and grocery money.

She struggled to stay afloat academically and financially. Then on a Saturday night in 2012, she finished studying and went to a dance club. Voicemail messages would later reveal heated discussion with multiple men.

Her roommate and a friend found her unresponsive in her room the next morning. Chapel Hill police would later say she had been bludgeoned to death with a rum bottle.

“Just an all-around good girl,” said Berrun, who remembered Hedgepeth as a student. “You never heard anything about her as far as being unruly. Every time you saw her, she just literally lit up a room. Other youth would just gravitate to her.”

Many rallies and powwows followed her death, not only honoring Hedgepeth but also drawing attention to murdered and missing Indigenous women across North Carolina and nationwide.

Activists called for more a serious investigation in the case of Katina Locklear, a Tuscarora woman who was gang-raped and stabbed 14 times in 2018 while bringing food to a homeless camp in Pembroke. They pleaded for action in the case of Rhonda Jones, a Lumbee woman who in 2017 was found upside-down and naked inside a trash can in Lumberton.

Families of both women have said their Native American status allowed for the cases to be soft-pedaled compared to those of white women. A 2008 study funded by the U.S. Justice Department showed murder rates for Native Americans can be 10 times as high as other groups. And earlier this year, Gov. Roy Cooper declared May 5 as a day of awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women.

‘It’s becoming a mainstream topic’

In Hollister, Tosha Silver in the tribal government complex had resigned herself to never seeing an arrest in Hedgepeth’s case, though Hedgepeth’s memory has inspired a scholarship fund.

“I just thought it would be another cold case,” Silver said.

But though many tribes still feel unseen outside their tight communities, the missing-and-murdered rallies have helped reveal the extent of this unique strain of violent crime.

Activists also hope their events might have helped push toward an arrest in Chapel Hill.

“Everywhere we go, we’re always talking about missing and murdered women,” said Crystal Cavalier-Keck, a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation in Burlington. “We’re trying to talk up the invisibility aspect. We have a lot more participants. We have a lot more tribal leaders taking this seriously. It’s becoming a mainstream topic.”

Meanwhile, in Hollister, the tribe waits.

Nine years have gone by, and the Haliwa-Saponi wonder how many more must pass before peace arrives.

This story was originally published September 17, 2021 at 4:54 PM with the headline "‘Never forgotten’ — Faith Hedgepeth’s tribe is thankful for arrest, still awaits answers."